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Recently, MMI extended coverage to the industry rumor that consumer electronics juggernaut Sony was thinking about jumping head first into the tablet pool to challenge Apple and possibly claim a chunk of the iPad's market share. Illustrating that every now and then a rumor in the tech world can still manifest into reality, the Wall Street Journal today is reporting that Sony is giving the green light to a tablet product of its own.

Sony is developing a portable device that shares characteristics of netbook computers, e-book readers and hand-held game machines, according to people familiar with the matter.

Sony's CFO, Nobuyuki Oneda, revealed that Sony “has to develop a device similar to Apple's iPad tablet computer, because it is a different product category than the company's existing electronic-book reader.” A Sony tablet, however, could be an outstanding product; one that would certainly be sleek, comfortably familiar, and capable of providing no shortage of bells and whistles to satisfy everyone from staunch book worms to crazed video game fanatics.

While's Apple's arrogance is sometimes too overpowering for its own good, a Sony tablet could humble Cupertino a bit and foster greater competition in the tablet marketplace - a situation that ultimately bodes well for consumers, though not necessarily for Apple. Sony, which already has a positive relationship with other industry giants like Google, may soon find itself delivering an Android-based alternative to the iPad that could really shake things up in the tablet computer business.